


Helpless

by Snap_crackle_spock



Series: I'm not throwing away my blaster shot [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Action?, F/M, I got them in my eyes, I've said to much, It's a wedding, Katy Perry - Freeform, So did Eliza, but it's also backstory, fluff?, hams friends, it's a little bit of everything, it's my star wars au again, tears?, up earlier than I'd anticipated, we got it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7035418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snap_crackle_spock/pseuds/Snap_crackle_spock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief summary of Hercules Mulligan’s current thought process: Shit. Shit shit motherfucking shit fuck fuck fuck damnit.</p><p>One mission. <br/>All he had to do was fly down for one, maybe two days. Take video of their formations and then take them back to Takodana. Easy peasy.</p><p>Except…</p><p>Except everything in the galaxy is going to shit and the universe hates him and literally nothing ever works out ever. </p><p>--</p><p>Eliza had always thought of herself as a kind person. She had to be to work at the elementary school, after all. So it seemed like a cruel joke that she would be chosen to sit at a monitor in a cramped room with feed of each cell, listening to people’s pained cries and be helpless to do anything. </p><p>--</p><p>Alternatively: It's my stupid Star Wars AU again, but this time with more Herliza than ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helpless

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I'm not dead! This is actually up a lot earlier than I thought it would be! I might even be able to get all of my one-shots up before school's out! (we get out crazy late)
> 
> Anywho, I combined both of the Herliza one-shot's I'd originally planned in this one! I hope you enjoy and, if you haven't read my other work in this series, please go check that out!

A brief summary of Hercules Mulligan’s current thought process:  _ Shit. Shit shit motherfucking shit fuck fuck fuck damnit. _

One mission. 

He was granted permission from Washington - not Lee, not Jefferson, not any second-rate aide. Motherfucking  _ George Washington _ had granted him permission to go on one solo mission to do a little bit of spy work on the basic training of StormTroopers. They’d gotten word from who-knows-where that the First Order was doing drills on the desert planet with their newest batch of pure-bred killers. All he had to do was fly down for one, maybe two days. Take video of their formations and then take them back to Takodana. Easy peasy.

Except…

Except everything in the galaxy is going to shit and the universe hates him and literally nothing ever works out ever. 

“You will bend to the power of the First Order.” The StormTrooper escorting him through the Star Destroyer he had been shuttled to from Jakku, where he’d been caught by one of the Troopers. “The First Order is the one true ruler of the universe. The Resistance will fall.”

“Fuck you.” Hercules shouted as he was marched through the hangar where nearly a hundred First Order troops and officials were rushing around in every which way. If there weren’t metal chains binding his wrists he could probably take at least ten of them before he got shot. After that he could take maybe four more before he actually died. And even then his ghost would come back and fuck some shit up.

“The First Order will reign victorious until the end of the galaxy!” The Trooper shot back and pressed his blaster between Hercules’ shoulder blades. “Maria will be excited to have a new Resistance member to play with.”

“Well fuck her too, then!” Hercules protested, loud enough for the whole ship to hear. 

“Get mistriss Reynolds.” The StormTrooper commanded one of his underlings who quickly scrambled away to fetch what’s-her-name. “I’m sure you’ve heard of her before. She’ll have fun picking apart your brain and finding every secret the Resistance has to offer.”

“Do you  _ ever  _ stop talking?” Hercules argued as he was marched into one of the million halls. In truth, he was scared. Scared beyond belief. He felt like he was about to piss his pants and cry and shrink into a ball all at once. Which was absolutely terrifying to him. He was the strong one. He was the one that Alex -Alex, who was hardly afraid of anything- ran to when he needed help. During thunderstorms that reminded him a little too much of the hurricane of Yavin 4, Hercules was always there to pull Alex into a hug and promise to punch any StormTroopers that came in and tried to take him away. He was the one who threatened Jefferson in a heartbeat when he’d been making moves on Peggy that she wasn’t comfortable with, even though she insisted she could take care of herself.

The prospect of not being able to be the big, scary guy that everyone both loved and steered clear of terrified him. They didn’t care what he was like, not on this base. All they needed was the information he had on the Resistance. Then they would dispose of him. There was no question or sugar coating for it. He’d known people -friends- who had been taken by First Order recruits and never returned. There was no reason to think anything better would happen to him.

It was horrifying to think that the First Order was doing this, making people feel more like data sacks that were easily disposed of when their usefulness expired instead of, well,  _ people _ . The idea that he would die without his personality, without the thing that made him alive, and instead would be put down, decommissioned like a common droid, with nobody even caring if he had last words was traumatising. 

 

Eliza was having a bit of a rough day. At least, it was rough by her standards. A month had passed. Exactly one month had been collected from Hapes by the First Order. They didn’t even call it kidnapping on her homeworld, not anymore. Eliza suspected that it had something to do with the fact that over half of the council of Hapes was either made of First Order members or sympathizers. Everyone else was to scared to have an opinion.

Hapes was controlled by the First Order. Anyone of the elders would deny it, but it was true. They would say that they were still a free people, that they had control over what was happening to their planet, and that the First Order was just there to lend a helping hand with any misfortune that might befall them. That didn’t explain why First Order members were beginning to replace teachers. That’s what happened to her, at least. She had worked at one of the elementary schools before StormTroopers had declared themselves the teachers for any grade young enough to have a moldable opinion.

In return, they’d ‘offered her a job’ helping to pilot one of the star destroyers. A job she couldn’t refuse. At all. They had threatened to hurt her family. And they had done so in the most casual of ways. 

_ “You have a lovely home, Elizabeth.” The general had said, some pompous man named Seabury who had just waltzed into Eliza and her apartment. “Even I would have trouble parting with it to go on a ship for the rest of my career. Of course, when duty calls we must obey it.” _

_ “Of course.” She said, her hands clasped behind her back as she stood facing him. It was basic etiquette, at least that’s what they were taught. When speaking with an official representative, you only speak when spoken to, you don’t sit unless they sit, and you’re hands are behind your back when you’re standing. _

_ “I’m so glad you think so.” He chuckled menacingly, moving over to her large, floor to ceiling windows. They were tinted, so no passing ship could see in. But the view was something she always took time to admire. It looked over the city, and she could see the buzz of passing cruisers from where she stood. “Hapes is a very beautiful planet, in general. They produce very beautiful people.” _

_ “Thank you.” She nodded, jaw setting nervously. _

_ “Of course, those that are most beautiful are also most breakable. As you know, you Hapans are quite terrible at seeing in the dark. A flaw in your build, yes, but quite useful for anyone attempting to harm one of you. It would make it so easy to sneak up on two old folk, much like your parents, and off them quickly.” _

_ She gulped nervously at the thought that he’d seemed to put actual time into this, and she didn’t hesitate to assume that he would execute it if she disobeyed. “When do I start, sir?” She asked, a wary look in her eyes. _

The entire ordeal was annoying. She’d needed to learn how to fight, even if it was just basic combat. She’d been forced to learn how to operate the system. And, above all, she’d been shipped off world. No more seeing her friends. No more calls to her niece and nephew. No more weekly trips to her parents.  _ Had they even been informed that she wasn’t there anymore? _

Today was particularly grueling, though. Sasha, the woman that usually worked in the prison ward, had caught a small bug that had been spreading, and had taken the day. Just Eliza’s luck that she was standing closest when Seabury was picking a replacement. 

It was even worse than piloting. She’d been friends with Sasha, at least they were the closest thing you could have to friends in the First Order. According to her, the wards were horribly dull until they brought someone into them, then it was just horrible. The sounds of screams and cries seeped through the metal walls and doors, ringing throughout the halls as people were tortured to the point of breaking and then tortured some more.

She had always thought of herself as a kind person. She had to be to work at the elementary school, after all. So it seemed like a cruel joke that she would be chosen to sit at a monitor in a cramped room with feed of each cell, listening to people’s pained cries and be helpless to do anything. 

  
  


The cell he was put in was small, to put it kindly. There was no place for him to sit, there was no source of light except for the little that seeped from under the door, and the stench from the small toilet in the room was beginning to get to him. 

It felt stupid, but all he could think about was Peggy, Alex, and Lafayette. The four of them had been unstoppable. They’d been the best of the best, and Hercules couldn’t help but feel like he’d let them down. Even worse, he could only imagine how they’d find out. He shrunk away from the thought that they would only find out after days and days of waiting for him to return. 

He was going to die there, and there was nothing he could do to prevent that. Nobody would come for him, not before he was dead. They expected him to be gone for a while, and by the time they thought that he had been gone long enough to warrant a team to go in and find him, he would already be dead. 

The door slid open, and in walked a slight female. Her high cheekbones were only accentuated by the fact that her dark hair was pulled into a tight bun at the top of her hair. In her hands was a metal tray, dreary looking ‘food’ at it’s center.

“What is this?” He asked sliding down against the wall to sit on the cold metal ground, “Some twisted play on my final meal?” It was stupid comment, made only dumber by the fact that it probably  _ was. _

“No,” she said, putting the tray in front of him, “there are sedatives in it that will keep you from getting any farther than the brig if you try to run.” Her light, airy voice made it almost difficult to process the gravity of her words. She was like a princess, a pretty woman with a pretty voice made for saying pretty things. It made Hercules wonder how she’d gotten tangled up in the whole mess that was the First Order and their precious war. “I suggest taking a small bite of the bread, one sip of the water, and two spoonfuls of the gray thing. You’re a big guy, so maybe you could make it through the entire glass without getting hit with the effects of it, though I wouldn’t plan on it. You do need to eat something, though.”

He eyeballed the tray, though didn’t move towards it, “Why are you helping me?” He asked. The members of the First Order weren’t exactly known for their hospitable manners. It was probably some sort of reverse psychology thing. Get him to trust her, then she’d turn around and stab him in the back one way or another. Maybe she was this ‘Maria Reynolds’ that StormTrooper kept talking about. The more he thought about it, the more reluctant Hercules became to comply with her.

“I don’t know,” she smiled down at the floor, “maybe it’s my little way of rebelling. It’s kind of stupid, but I guess I would prefer to see you live long enough to get out of here. One of us has to.” Her smile seemed so genuine, Hercules almost believed her. He almost believed that it was possible for the First Order to leave something this pure untouched. 

“You seem awfully helpful for somebody who allies themselves with the First Order.” 

With two short strides, she moved to stand next to him, and for a moment Hercules braced himself, prepared for her to attack. “May I?” She asked, gesturing to the floor space next to him. Looking at the empty area and then back up to her eyes, he nodded. She sat down, legs folding beneath her modestly, and let her head fall against the wall. “I’m not exactly here of my own free will. My planet, Hapes, is controlled by these monsters. I’m supposed to see being apart of the Order as some kind of honor.”

“Why not leave?” He asked, slightly intrigued by this woman. Of course, he was still cautious. This could all be some elaborate lie that was being constructed without his knowledge as a way to get him to relax. 

“I’ve got a family,” she sighed, “they won’t let me leave. The commanders here are horrible, yes, but they will hold up their end of a threat. If I were to leave it would only be a matter of time before they were dead. I’d rather spend the rest of my life doing something I hated than see them suffer. I suppose that’s a little bit selfish, aiding the people that want the galaxy to suffer in return for the secured safety of those I love.”

“Not at all,” Hercules argued.  _ Fuck it, _ he thought,  _ if I’m going to die I might as well play along with this game and spew some a-fucking-mazing advice.  _ “I think it’s actually very brave. If there’s one thing that everyone should fight for, it’s love. My family’s gone, long gone by now. The First Order trapped them under a pile of rubble. They’re what I fought for. Them and the new family I have in the Resistance.”

“The Resistance,” she laughed, “what a great idea. It’s silly, but when I was younger -when I first learned about all of this bloodshed- I wanted to grow up and be a pilot for the Resistance. They all seemed like such good people. That’s all I ever wanted to be, a good person. And now I’m stuck being the worst of people.”

The gears were turning in Hercules’ mind. If this wasn’t a lie, this could be his way out. He could do this, he could make it out alive. Even better, he could be robbing the First Order of one of it’s members and stealing her to the Resistance. “You don’t have to be, though.” He got to his feet, suddenly filled with determination. “You and I could get out. We could go to your planet, take your family, and leave. You could come with us. Lady, this could work.”

Hercules watched with anticipation as the twinkle in her chocolate colored eyes brightened and a grin split onto her face. “Yeah,” she nodded, “we could do this. We  _ are _ doing this!”

  
  


“Okay,” she mumbled, keep calm, “keep calm.” 

“I am calm,” The man from the Resistance replied effortlessly. 

“I was talking to myself,” she whispered back. She did have good reason to be, too. They were walking through the middle of the busiest part of the Star Destroyer, the hangar. Thousands of Troopers were scuttling around them, and Eliza was pressing a blaster between the shoulderblades of, at the moment, her only ally. She was going against the protocol that had been ingrained in her mind since her pre-school days. It felt like any misstep would result in her immediate obliteration. 

“Don’t be nervous,” he hissed to her, though it wasn’t really a hiss. It was comforting, ironic as that may be. This morning, the last thing she would’ve expected to happen was a member of the Resistance comforting her.

“Okay,” she turned them to face a cruiser, “let’s do this.” 

The lie was easy enough to spin. There was only one Trooper guarding the ship, a young thing with Ph-L1p engraved on his uniform. All she had to tell him was that she was transporting the prisoner to a different transport, and they were home free. It seemed almost too easy. They made it right to the Hapes sector until they saw it. 

At first Eliza -who was sitting in the passenger seat next to the man she’d learned was called Hercules- Eliza thought the flood of ships were coming for them. Before she could even ponder how they’d found out the two of them had escaped, Eliza prepared herself. But they were all whizzing right by them. 

That was when she noticed that Hapes was glowing.

Now, normally, her home planet had a faint blue glow. It was a side effect from the massive amounts of technology they used. But this was different. This glow was red and orange and angry. It pulsed over and over, and that was when Eliza realized  _ it was exploding from the inside. _ All she could do was watch in horror as Hapes, where her family and all of the children she had taught and all of her friends had been, disappeared into a spherical cloud of fire and light. 

She felt so… so… 

Helpless. 

  
  


Hercules didn’t really have that many emotional attachments to Eliza. They’d known each other for three hours, tops. And, yet, he felt somehow guilty about what had just happened. The shuttle was comfortably in hyperspace and neither of them had spoken a word since her home planet had exploded. 

“I-” He started then rethought it, “Are you okay?” A stupid question. Of course she wasn’t okay. Hercule remembered when his world had metaphorically crumbled around him as he watched his family be crushed underground. Now she had to deal with her world literally exploding. Her friends, loved ones, and everything in between were gone. He couldn’t even imagine the feeling. 

“They’re gone,” She whispered, still staring blankly at the control panel. She’d been looking at it since Hapes had exploded, as if she were afraid that if she looked away she would see it all over again. “They didn’t even let me have a picture of them with me. I- I don’t have anything to remember with.” 

She broke then, and Hercules felt oddly relieved. He’d been anticipating it for the past hour, and it was nice to know that she still had emotions, even if it also meant that she had sobs shaking through her whole person. Well, nice wasn’t the right word. It was comforting to know that she still had a personality.

“I’m sorry.” He wrapped his arms around her, wishing that he’d known her better so that it would be less awkward for her. He wished that she had someone she actually knew to help her get through this, but they were all gone. Hercules was all she had now, and he felt horrible for it. “It’ll get better, but know that it’s okay to let it out.”

“I miss them,” she sobbed, and he could feel the tears starting to seep through his light weight shirt, “I want them all to come back. I want them to be okay. Or, at least, I want to be with them.”

“Don’t say that,” He said into her hair, “you’re so kind, even though I only have a few hours as evidence, I know it. And I know that they wouldn’t want you to die because of guilt. They would want you to keep living. They would want you to keep fighting in their name. You are not a bad person because you weren’t with them, you’re brave because you’ll keep going, even without them.”

_ “Thank you.” _

  
  


Eliza thought a lot about that day. She thought about it every time she saw Hercules for the first time after a long time apart, and this was no exception. As she walked down the make-shift aisle (the Castle had been transformed for the event. Each couch and chair was put on either side of the room and the multicolored rugs were lined up as best they could be. The ‘altar’ was actually just a slightly raised area in front of the large hearth. 

Each row of seats were decorated with the gigantic lilies from the lake. The aisle was decorated with petals from similar petals (Peggy had screamed when she found out she got to be the flower girl) and everyone Eliza and Hercules cared for was in attendance. 

Philip, Theo, and Theodosia Senior were seated in the very front. Georges the Tooka had his own seat, per Laf’s request. Angelica had walked down the aisle ahead of Eliza, arm in arm with Lafayette. They looked like a power couple, her in a pale peach dress and him in a nice gray suit. Alex and John had followed them, Alex in a green dress shirt and trousers and John in a nice looking navy jacket and slacks with a white pressed shirt. Peggy had practically skipped down ahead of them, her metal pail filled to the prim with only blue and green petals, which she’d thrown to the ground with a little bit too much force. She looked radiant in her yellow dress. 

She, Angelica, and Lafayette had been with her since four in the morning, working on her hair, makeup, and dress. She wanted very desperately to represent her culture, and had made a traditional Hapes wedding gown. It was light blue and wrapped around her upper torso, with metal shoulder plates that jutted out. Her arms were decorated with traditional marriage tattoos and her head was adorned with a handmade metal circuit that held up the veil.

Taking a deep breath, floated down, her arm resting on George’s. Hercules was waiting at the altar, Martha at his side and ready to officiate, with his flowing green traditional Kage uniform, and Eliza had never been more in love. 

Once she got there and George took his place at Peggy’s side, Martha began. “We are gathered here today,” she said in her booming voice, “to celebrate the official matrimony of these two young people.” Hercules and Eliza smiled at each other. “To those new and old to the Resistance, their love is a symbol of what we fight so hard to maintain. Hope, peace, adoration, and everything of the sort. You are a symbol of hope to us all, young and old. 

“In the years I’ve served the Resistance, I have never seen a love quite like theirs. They take time to stop and adore each other. It is imperative that we continue to fight, yes. But we must also remember what it is we are fighting form. For them, it is each other, as it is for many others.” Eliza could’ve sworn she threw a glance to John and Alex. “For others, it is family,” she looked at Theodosia Senior, “and for some it’s just the knowledge that they’re doing the right thing,” Lafayette, Peggy, and then Angelica. “Angelica, Lafayette, if you would.”

The two of them stepped forwards respectively, each with a cushioned ring in their hands. Eliza took the one from Angelica, thick and gold, and slid it onto Hercules’ finger. “With this ring, I make an unbreakable vow to love you, forever and always.”Hercules repeated the action and words with her ring, a smaller silver one.

“In the name of the Force, Light and Dark and all things between, I now hereby declare your eternal devotion. May the Maker grant you both with long, happy lives together. You may kiss.”

The crowd erupted into applause (she was positive she heard a wolf whistle from Alex or Lafayette) as Hercules carefully took Eliza’s cheek and pulled her into a gentle kiss. It felt different, somehow. Richer and more full of life than before. 

And, for the first time since she’d escaped the clutches of the First Order, Eliza didn’t feel like she was Helpless. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> Coming up: the Philip backstory one-shot!


End file.
